Dennis Wise: Fazio’s Ace In The Hole Is Quite a Wise Guy

GOLFILLINOIS.COM October 2002

Fazio’s ace in the hole in quite a Wise guy

EXCERPT: CHICAGO — We’ve all heard the great parables of turning water to wine, a loaf of bread into a thousand fish. The newest legend is that of The Glen Club, an Air Force base turned elite golf course.

When the magic wand stopped waving, Kemper Sports Management and Tom Fazio Designs had altered a military stomping grounds into a golf stratosphere yet unreached in the Chicago area.

Tom Fazio, along with senior designer Dennis Wise, have hit home runs before. Shadow Creek in Las Vegas, Butler National in Oak Brook, IL, and Wade Hampton Golf Course in Cashiers, N.C., to name a few that consistently rank in the top 100 golf courses in the United States. Those are the landmarks that allow many to fancy Fazio as the preeminent designer of modern golf courses.

Wise is his ace in the hole, a right hand man with credentials to steer alone but an immeasurable degree of respect and admiration for the captain that he hasn’t and will not jump ship.

“If there is or was a better teacher, I’d be working for him,” Wise said.